Micamo

Georgian Berber And my favorite, Nuxalk (Bella Coola) Probably the oldest recorded instance of trolling in the history of humanity. Personally, I think they're beautiful.

[ðæʔd biː pəɹfɪkɫiː faɪn baɪ miː] (Seriously though, IPA aids aren't that bad of an idea, preferrably in some sort of in-game glossary of terms.)

A fair point, I suppose. I guess I'm just a stickler for this kinda stuff. So, on the topic of conlangs: 1. How much are you focusing on making the history of the languages apparent in their design? e.g. semantic shift from cognates and re-borrowings? Will the ancient sources of languages we come across (say in ruins) be obviously different (yet related) to their modern counterparts? 2. Are there going to be any conlangs based on languages outside of the indo-european family? (I'd particularly expect this for the Orlans and the Dwarves, given their fluff thus far.)

Okay, here's my problem with this: How much sense does it make for each conlang within the world of Eternity to have its own orthography conventions? Different real-world languages use different spellings for the same phonemes because of sound change and having adopted the latin alphabet at different points in their development. I assume that, in-world, the latin alphabet doesn't actually exist and the latin orthographies we see are a transcription of the native writing systems for the benefit of the reader. But a good transcription system is as historically-agnostic as possible to reflect current pronunciations.

Georgian Berber And my favorite, Nuxalk (Bella Coola)

It's not about simulating reality, it's about crafting an experience for the player. In Dark Souls (the only game I've ever played with a resting mechanic where I thought it actually worked) you get back your spellcasting and your estus flasks (used to regain health) at campfires. The game world is filled with a foreboding, lonely atmosphere where the fires are the only safe places, and the world is dying because the fires are going out. In this way Dark Souls uses its mechanics to create meaning: Without it the First Flame would be a pointless MacGuffin.

You're absolutely right: We can't really determine which is which for sure without divining authorial intent. So either: - They decided their design goals in advance and spent time playtesting various prototypes, coming to the conclusion that a rest mechanic (with modifications from the IE games) was the best solution. - They defaulted to the rest mechanic (because that's what the IE games did) and never considered any potential alternatives. I'm a cynic.

That's like saying "No randomized loot drops means you have to have a real-money microtransaction store to buy weapon upgrades for your character."

Not what I was talking about at all. Game mechanics are tools. When designing a game the proper way, you start with an experience you want the player to have, then you use art, music, dialogue, and mechanics to find some way to evoke that experience. Do you want to make a game scary? Then you use mechanics that evoke horror the same way you use cramped environments, spooky sounds, and blood-splattered textures. Per-rest mechanics worked in Dark Souls because they were the solution to a complex set of ludic and thematic problems with the game's predecessor, Demon's Souls. The problem with rest mechanics in P:E is that they aren't being included as the solution to a design problem, they're being included for the sole reason that it's what the IE games (and by extension D&D) did. It's literally backwards game design, trying to suit the task to fit the tool rather than the tool to fit the task. To use an analogy, trying to make rest mechanics work in P:E is like trying to build a house using Chewing Gum, Battery Acid, and Sawdust. You can come up with whatever crazy ideas you like, but it's never going to be as good as something made with the proper tools. EDIT: Now that I think about it, Extra Credits recently did a video on similar problems in Bioshock Infinite.

And features added for the sake of features hasn't been working out either. There's brilliance in simplicity: If you have to keep adding more and more layers of simulation to make a mechanic work, then maybe you're better off just dumping that mechanic.

I agree: The best moments of Jade Empire are easily eclipsed by even the worst moments in Torment. My point though was that even something as simple as listening to an old man ramble on about politics can be made interesting by the context and worldbuilding involved. (A caveat: While the flashback you get while signing the contract was a chilling and unforgettable moment, I don't count it as part of Angyar's quest, since you can see it without ever meeting Angyar and you can complete his quest without signing a contract yourself. It's content that you're exposed to in the process of doing Angyar's quest, but that's not the same thing as the content being a part of it.) An unfortunately reality, indeed. "Everyone else does it" is no excuse for bad practices, however. That's not really what I meant. I'm not exactly qualified as a writer, so here's a painfully obvious idea as an example: Project Eternity could easily use its post-medieval setting as an opportunity to explore enlightenment ideas. There's a strange dissonance between an intellectual movement based on reason and requiring evidence for claims and Fantasy settings where the assumption is that All Myths Are True. The easy answer is to dump one (this is a world where Logic Does Not Work) or the other (people believe lots bull**** and you can't trust what they say), but the interesting answer is that they can be reconciled. How? Why? A clever quest writer (that is, not me) could come up with situations that explore this question.

And I think this type of design is backwards: The right way is to design the world first, then think of ways to engage the player and make them interested in that world. Meaning first, mechanics second. Making up the mechanics and then trying to figure out how to give them meaning is just plain silly.

Actually I think the problem is a bit bigger than you may realize. Let's take the example of a pretty good side quest: Dealing with Angyar in Torment. Angyar's quest has to do with the role of the Dustmen in the Hive and their philosophy. Let's see what happens when we strip this context out of it: Now let's see what happens when you go further and strip out even MORE context: Oh no, it looks like Angyar's quest is just a cleverly disguised fed-ex quest, straight out of World of Warcraft! What are we ever going to do? The reason why I think context is the most important factor in judging a quest is because, without it, *everything* boils down to stupid fetch quests/fedex quests/kill 10 boars quests.

Snobby opinion time! There's a lot of metrics by which you can judge this, but I think that by far the most important one is this: What does this situation tell me about the world I'm in? The problem with coming up with these things in isolation like this is that no matter how detailed and involved and Morally Ambiguous and Consequence-Filled you make a situation, it's ultimately meaningless without context to tie it to the larger world and campaign. Without context all you are is a DM stalling for time, and the best you can hope for is to get your act back together before the players catch on and get bored. Like, here's an example from Jade Empire. What I wanna talk about is a conversation you can have with a guy named Old Ming, down on the beach in the starting town tending to a statue of the emperor. You go down to meet him as part of a side quest to get some herb you need to heal someone, but if you want you can just stand there and listen to him ramble on about various things. It sounds boring but honestly it was my favorite part of the entire game. I listened everything Old Ming had to say, then I listened to it all again, then I listened to everything he had to say a third time to make sure I didn't miss anything. I could have listened to him talk for hours without getting bored. I was so fascinated with Old Ming's dialogue because it painted a picture of an unfamiliar, fantastic world, and it made me want to keep asking questions and find out more about it. Probably the best example of this is the conversation you and Ming can have about the long drought and the emperor: What this conversation painted for me was a society where the relationship between the government and the citizenry is very different from in our world: In our society people assume the folks in charge have no idea what they're doing and question their decisions without a second thought. But Old Ming completely, and blindly, accepts the wisdom of the Emperor's actions, without even knowing what they were. In another game Old Ming might have been a political strawman, there only to make us feel good about ourselves, but Ming isn't a slavering fanatic, he's a perfectly intelligent man who makes reasonable and passionate arguments for what he believes. Even if for just a moment this line makes you second-guess yourself and look deeper at your own ideas, and that makes it brilliant. (Unfortunately I played through the rest of Jade Empire hoping for another Old Ming, and never found one. It was just a bunch of terrible kung fu movie plot bull****, but with well-choreographed fight scenes replaced with a clunky button masher of a combat system. Oh well. Dear Obsidian: More Old Ming, less Dawn Star. Yuck.)

Here's an idea: When you encounter a campsite there's a random chance that there's another adventuring party already there, using it. "Piss off, this is our spot! For some reason, it's the only place where you can sleep for hundreds of miles! Our wizard needs to get her spell slots back too, you know." You have to stand there and wait for them to finish, or you can just straight-up murder them and take their campsite.

Actually, I quite like doing just that. Minecraft generates some breathtaking environments sometimes, I like to just walk around and explore. I especially like it when it snows. You could say that I'm "challenging myself to find a pretty vista to look at" or whatever but this is rationalizing. And if you want an example from the IE games Torment is basically the easiest RPG ever made, and I don't think it would have been any better if there were more, harder combats. There are excellent games out there that are excellent through how they provide challenge (my favorite example of this type I've played recently is Hotline Miami), but challenge itself is neither necessary nor sufficient to have an excellent game.

Couldn't disagree more. I think games are about interaction, and challenge is merely one way of interacting with something. Saying that games are inherently about challenges is like saying movies are inherently summer blockbusters, or that literature is inherently trashy romance novels. It's the most popular and it makes the most money, but personally, the best games I've ever played were among the easiest.

Not spoiling the story is fine, but I feel there are things they could (and should) be talking about that aren't spoilers. It's not a spoiler for Torment, for example, to dig out the old Planescape books and read about Sigil or the Planes. What are the different cultures of the Dyrwood like? What are the main conflicts that drive this world? What are the main towns and cities we'll be visiting, and what are they like? What are our companions' backstories, and what are their personalities like? Who are the major NPCs we're going to be meeting, and what are they like? Like, here's just one example of something I'd like to talk about: We already know that firearms are starting to become viable weapons and this is threatening wizards' position at the top of the food chain. Are there luddite wizards who are trying to stop the social change to keep their positions of power? Can I be one of them? How about more open-minded wizards who embrace and accept new technologies and integrate them with their spellcasting? Can I be one of them?

We haven't seen much of the important stuff yet, as far as I'm concerned. A scrap of lore here, a piece of concept art there. I could care less about the technical and mechanical stuff we've mostly seen so far. As for what we've gotten, I think it stinks too much of Forgotten Realms, but there's enough good there that I'm still expecting it to be a good game I'll enjoy, about on par with Dragon Age. That opinion is subject to change as we see more, however. Honestly? I couldn't get into them. Icewind Dale bored me and I found Baldur's Gate insulting, though to be fair I haven't finished either one (nor have I played IWD2 or BG2). My excitement for P:E is entirely from its Ps:T influences; Influences I've sadly yet to see (and I'm afraid won't be there now that Tides is there to fill the "Torment Successor" role).

*raises hand* This wasn't a problem. I've never once played a CRPG where it felt like the combat was anything other than time-wasting filler that got in the way of me enjoying the parts of the game I actually liked. It's my least favorite part of all of them. The last thing I want is a more involved "strategic layer" to get in the way of my fun.

Yes. I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say. I honestly think it's just because Choice and Consequence is a big fad right now. My opinion is, a game where you play a pre-generated character with their own motivations can be just as good as a game where you play your own character, though those two games would be good in different ways. False choice. Games Aren't Movies. For what?

I mean, the situation of being a video game hero who has to deal with lethal combat several times a day (that's what I assume is the "stress" he was referring to).

Uhh,I'm aware of this. I was being sarcastic. <.< Turning to sex in times of stress as a coping mechanism is a sign of a pretty serious type of nervous breakdown. It is not representative of healthy human behavior. Normal humans in a fight-or-flight situation have sex as the last thing on their minds. Anyway unless you go out of your way to rest all the time to advance the clock Planescape: Torment doesn't take very long in in-game time. Realistically speaking I'd say Annah got too fond of TNO too quickly. Besides, the arc didn't need it, it was fine the way it was.

Well, for me, the appeal of spellcasting is more about spontaneous creativity and self-expression, not really power: The more open-ended the spell is in its possibilities, the better. It's why I tend to lean toward illusions and conjuration: The cool moments in playing a caster are when you figure out a clever way to solve your problem with a single spell. I get bored really fast playing a standard evocation "kill it with fire" character (like the Mailman) no matter how relatively efficient or powerful it actually is.

Dammit, the forum decided to eat my post and it's too late to edit. Sorry about that, I'll just re-post what I was trying to say there: - Bioware games have romance arcs. - I hate Bioware games. - Therefore, if Eternity has romance arcs, I will hate Eternity. Flawless implication there. Look, it's fine to argue Eternity shouldn't have romance arcs (maybe you think the tone isn't right for them or they'd distract from other companion interactions) but to say Eternity shouldn't have them because Bioware did it poorly is just plain silly. Also, while I'm posting I might as well give my opinion: I don't really care, honestly. If a game has that sort of thing, sure, I'll do it. If it doesn't, I won't miss it. Two asides: First, why does everyone point out Dragon Age 2 when there are bioware games that are far, FAR worse examples? Second... I'm not gonna call myself a JRPG affectionado, but I've never, ever played a JRPG with romance arcs that I would call anything but horrible. They're always just taken for granted. Of course the heroine falls in love with the hero, that's just how stories work, there's no reason to explain it or justify it or build up to it or play with it at all, it just happens.